Tag Archives: Qatari

Frank Wolf, former Northern Virginia Congressman in the US House of Representatives, and veteran human rights advocate, has been in the forefront of pressing the Administration to issue a rumored State Department ruling against ISIS for Genocide against Yazidis and hopefully threatened Christian and other non-Muslim Minorities in Syria and Iraq. We revealed the stalemate over including Syrian and Iraqi Christians in the proposed Genocide ruling in a post on a report by Nina Shea of the Hudson Institute Center for Religious Freedom, “State Department May Exclude Middle East Christians from ISIS Genocide Victim Ruling.” Ann Patterson, Assistant Secretary of State who heads the Bureau of Near East Affairs, had allegedly excluded threatened Christian minorities from the proposed order. Patterson is the former US Ambassador to Egypt, who had supported the ousted Morsi regime backed by the Muslim Brotherhood. We are pleased that our Lisa Benson Show colleague, Dr. M. Zhudi Jasser, Vice Chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom supports inclusion of threatened Syriac and Assyrian Chaldean Christians in the proposed State department ISIS Genocide ruling.

“The administration from what we can gather is taking this very, very seriously,” Wolf said.

Wolf, a former Republican congressman from Northern Virginia, doesn’t agree with the Obama administration on many things, but the genocide issue may be one in which common ground is in sight.

“I commend them,” Wolf said. “I’m really pleased that they are moving ahead and doing this, but now that the administration is doing this, Congress ought to do something.”

A bipartisan resolution pending in the U.S. House describes crimes being perpetrated against Christians and other ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria as genocide under international law. It calls on the United Nations to “to assert leadership by calling the atrocities being committed in these places by their rightful names: ‘war crimes’, ‘crimes against humanity’, and ‘genocide’.”

In September, Wolf sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch asking that the genocide label be applied. He also asked that the U.S. prosecute ISIS’s self-proclaimed caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and Mohammed Emwazi, aka “Jihadi John,” for killing American journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley, and American aid worker Kala Mueller.

“When we got back, it was clear to me that what we saw was genocide, particularly against the Yazidis, but even the Christians,” Wolf said.

In addition to the Yazidis, Shiite Muslims and Turkomen also are genocide victims, Wolf said. Wolf’s quest received an added boost from the U.S. Holocaust Museum, which issued a report last week also calling on the administration to label the atrocities against the Yazidis as genocide.

“Our findings also suggest there is sufficient reason to assert that in addition to committing crimes against humanity and war crimes, IS perpetrated genocide against the Yezidi population living in Ninewa in August 2014. The determination of genocide against the Yezidi population is based on a preponderance of the evidence, and does not reflect the standard necessary for individual criminal responsibility. Any formal determination that genocide was perpetrated needs to be made by a court and based on careful consideration of the evidence.”

Why the Genocide ruling is important.

“It would help trigger the indictment of … Al-Baghdadi,” Wolf said. “Al-Baghdadi was directly responsible for the deaths of the four Americans, including the assault of the poor woman from Arizona.

“That would almost have to follow through because it would force the Justice Department … to indict Al-Baghdadi.”

A genocide declaration would open the way to prosecuting anyone who helps ISIS. It also could pressure the U.N. to similarly classify the atrocities as genocide, Wolf said. Such people could be brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague for war crimes tribunals similar to those that followed the Holocaust or the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s.

“Anyone who did anything at all would be guilty of genocide,” Wolf said. “They would be a participant in genocide, so that will kind of chill a lot of the support for ISIS.”

The curious role of Qatari and Saudi culpability in support of ISIS Genocide.

This could potentially ensnare the ISIS supporters in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and even Turkey, the latter of which failed to stem the tide of foreign fighters into Syria.

Numerous people warned Wolf during his trip of Qatari funding for ISIS. Wealthy Qataris who bankrolled ISIS’s predecessor, al-Qaida in Iraq, have maintained their financial support for ISIS. U.S. authorities repeatedly have cited Qatar for its failure to crackdown on terrorism financing.

“Qatar’s overall level of [counter-terrorism] cooperation with the U.S. is considered the worst in the region,” a top level State Department official wrote in a secret Dec. 30, 2009 State Department cable.

Saudi citizens “have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to Syria in recent years, including to ISIS and other groups,” Washington Institute Fellow Lori Plotkin Boghart wrote in a June 2014 report.

Turkey’s Intelligence Facilitates ISIS Smuggled Oil Sales.

A declaration also could turn those involved in black market ISIS oil sales into accessories to genocide.

“Trucks are rolling out of ISIS-controlled territory up into Turkey,” Wolf said.

Wolf also condemned Turkey for failing to shut down the flow of foreign fighters into its territory.

“Anyone aiding and abetting [genocide] could be prosecuted,” Wolf said.

Jasser on the Problem of Excluding Christians from the ISIS Genocide Ruling.

“There is no doubt that that designation meets the parameters of the definition of genocide because of the declaration by ISIS that they wanted to wipe those (Christians) out,” said Zhudi Jasser, president of the American Islamic Form for Democracy. “Their policies really do not fit together.

“This designation becomes meaningless if it’s not applied in a consistent and rational way,” said Jasser, who also serves as vice-chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. ”

Christians must be included in any final declaration, Wolf said, but added that he was unaware of any effort to omit them.

A State Department spokeswoman would not comment on which minority groups might be covered in a genocide declaration, saying the agency did not want to “comment on any internal discussions.”

“We certainly continue to be horrified by ISIL’s atrocities against the Yazidi people, as well as its continuing appalling atrocities against other minority communities including Christians, Shabak, Turkmen, Sabean-Mandean, Kakai and other minority populations through its horrific campaign of murder, kidnapping, sexual slavery and forcible transfer of populations,” State Department spokeswoman Julia Mason said in an e-mailed statement.

Wolf and Jasser’s comments and those of Ms. Mason of the State raise questions of what’s behind Ms.Patterson’s reluctance to include Syrian and Iraqi Christians in the Genocide ruling. Is it perhaps because, as Shea, Joseph Kassab of the Iraqi Christian Advocacy and Empowerment Institute contend that it would force the State Department Refugee Admissions Program (RAP) under Assistant Secretary Ann Richards to issue P2/P3 visas for Family Reunification to tens of thousands of accredited Christians? This disputed State Department ISIS Genocide ruling comes amidst the roiling Congressional debate with the Obama White House over admission of an initial allotment of allegedly vetted Syrian Refugees. Arkansas US Sen. Tom Cotton revealed that the RAP “inadvertently” discriminates against Christians. Of the 2000 Syrian Refugees that have been admitted under RAP during the last three years, less than 3 percent were Christians. That is due UN High Commissioner for Refugees Program excludes virtually all Christians as they are “urban refugees” avoiding those detention camps because of threats on their lives from Muslim residents, some alleged ISIS sympathizers.

Al Jazeera every week airs its superstar, Muslim Brotherhood leader Yousuf al-Qaradawi, who is barred from entering the US and other Western countries. He has repeatedly called for the Muslim world to damage the U.S. economy by boycotting American products, as well as often rendering opinions such as, “Oh Allah, kill them [Jews] down to the very last one.” One can see why Qatar’s leadership would like to propagate “a Qatari sponsored narrative of events, and shape that narrative and how it is seen.” Most moving is to hear that Al Gore finds these opinions as “aligned with our point of view.”

Most disturbing about the sale of Al Gore and Joel Hyatt’s Current TV to Al Jazeera are the reported sanctimonious remarks about the character of the Current Network and the comparable frame of mind of Al Jazeera. Qatar’s leadership, according to Gulf analyst Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, would like to propagate “a Qatari sponsored narrative of events in the Middle East and elsewhere,” and be “able to shape that narrative and and how it is seen.” Al Jazeera regularly promotes its superstar, Muslim Brotherhood leader Yousuf al Qaradawi, who is barred from entering the US and other Western countries. He has for years said such things as : “The last punishment [against the Jews] was carried out by Hitler. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hands of the believers,” and “Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them [Jews]. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one”. Given Al Jazeera’s record of backing the Islamist revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, one can see why Qatar’s leadership would “like to be able to shape that narrative and how it is seen.” Al-Qaradawi has also said, according to the peerless MEMRI.org, that Islam’s “conquest of Rome” will save Europe from its subjugation to materialism and promiscuity, and that Islam will return to Europe as a conquerer.

Al Jazeera has also, according to MEMRI, “continued to call for the Muslim world to to damage the U.S. economy by boycotting American products.” In justifying the sale, Gore apparently explained to the The Blaze: “the legacy of who the network goes to is important to us and we are sensitive to networks not aligned with out point of view.” His partner, Joel Hyatt, added: “Al-Jazeera was founded with the same goals we had for Current,” and that the Qatari network intends to “invest heavily” in new programming. Got it. Most moving is to hear that Al Gore finds these statements as “aligned with our point of view.”

In a withering article, Amin Farouk disposed of the benign view of the activity of the Doha network and chronicled its Islamist agenda. Others, apparently already aware of it, responded accordingly: Time Warner, the second-largest cable company in the U.S., immediately refused to carry either Current or Al Jazeera.

Qatar, the country and the political system which founded and controls Al Jazeera, has been dominated by the al-Thani family for almost 150 years, and is now ruled by Sheikh Hamad bin Khaalifa al-Thani, an absolute monarch who deposed his father in 1995 to become Emir. In 1995, Emir al-Thani established The Qatar Foundation, currently headed by his second wife, Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, “to meet the challenges of an ever-changing world,” according to a report by MEMRI’s Steven Stalinsky. The Qatar Foundation’s “Education City”, which the Qatar Foundation calls its “flagship project,” brings students to Qatar from Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, Northwestern, Texas A&M, Virginia Commonwealth and Cornell to meet leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Partners of the Qatar Foundation include, among others, institutions from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Mexico, and institutions such as Microsoft, Cisco, Conoco-Phillis, Exxon Mobil, Rolls-Royce, European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, Gartner Lee (Canada), as well as several additional universities in the U.S., Canada, Spain, France, and the U.K. Students who are U.S. citizens from American universities are eligible for federal student aid through the U.S. Department of Education, as well as scholarships “for prospective students” from the Qatar Foundation. In article in Texas A&M’s newspaper, April 24, 2009, the university’s assistant dean for Finance and Administration states, “Essentially all costs of A&M [at Education City] are covered by the Qatar Foundation” and suggests that “professors are given significant financial and U.S. Taxation incentives for working at A&M Qatar.”

Meanwhile, Al-Qaradawi, head of the European Council for Fatwa and Research and the International Council of Muslim Scholars, and who was voted number three on the list of the 100 Top Intellectuals worldwide by Foreign Policy magazine (July/August 2008), inaugurated the Islamic Studies program and also maintains a significant presence partly through the Al-Qaradawi Center for Research and Modern Thought, and the Sheikh Al-Qaradawi Scholarship program . Meanwhile, as he receives awards, he calls on television for boycotts of products from the U.S., for the “conquest of Rome,” and for another genocide against the Jews, this time at the hands of the Muslims.

Qatar was once a center of pearl fishing, as well as a British protectorate until 1971, when it became independent and refused to join the United Arab Emirates. Now it is one of the world’s richest countries, and its leader evidently wishes to to be influential. With a population of about 1.7 million, of whom only 300,000 are citizens, Qatar, which produces about 850,000 barrels of crude oil a day and has more than 15% of the world’s proven gas resources, and is one of the world’s fastest growing economies. Thanks to the increase in oil prices, its GDP is currently about $175 billion, and per capita income is $100,000 — the highest in the Arab world, and almost double that of the U.S.

Emir al-Thani has not been slow in exerting the role of his country in world economic and political affairs. The small land of pearl divers has now become a global energy power, and al-Thani appears an ambitious political leader, playing a major role in enflaming, steering and then resolving regional conflicts, as well as being an important investor in European economies. In October 2012, the Emir visited Gaza, where he and made a pledge of $400 million to the terrorist group Hamas. Qatar’s international role can only be enhanced by its selection to be the host of the 2022 FIFA world soccer competition, the first of any Middle East country.

1. Qatar has ties to Al Qaeda, runs Al Jazeera and was responsible for much of the Arab Spring.

2. The Qatari goal was to build up a network of Islamist states.

3. Qatar has a major financial presence in Europe and is turning into the a new and even more dangerous Saudi Arabia.

This situation is slowly leaking into the mainstream media, either because Obama Inc. is breaking with Qatar or looking to shift responsibility for actions that they knew Qatar was undertaking.

The United States, which had only small numbers of C.I.A. officers on the ground in Libya during the tumult of the rebellion, provided little oversight of the arms shipments. Within weeks of endorsing Qatar’s plan to send weapons there in spring 2011, the White House began receiving reports that they were going to Islamic militant groups. They were “more antidemocratic, more hard-line, closer to an extreme version of Islam” than the main rebel alliance in Libya, said a former Defense Department official.

And again, we are not talking about the Muslim Brotherhood here. According to DC, the Muslim Brotherhood is moderate. We are talking Al Qaeda militias, officially linked or not officially linked.

He said that Qatar would not have gone through with the arms shipments if the United States had resisted them, but other current and former administration officials said Washington had little leverage at times over Qatari officials. “They march to their own drummer,” said a former senior State Department official. The White House and State Department declined to comment.

The technical term for this is plausible deniability. The State Department at this point had every reason to know what Qatar would do. The terrorist ties there were well documented.

The administration has never determined where all of the weapons, paid for by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, went inside Libya, officials said. Qatar is believed to have shipped by air and sea small arms, including machine guns, automatic rifles, and ammunition, for which it has demanded reimbursement from Libya’s new government. Some of the arms since have been moved from Libya to militants with ties to Al Qaeda in Mali, where radical jihadi factions have imposed Shariah law in the northern part of the country, the former Defense Department official said. Others have gone to Syria, according to several American and foreign officials and arms traders.

How do you say Chutzpah in Arabic again?

So we’ve got Obama giving his blessing to Qatari arms shipments to Libya, which not only go to Islamist militias in Libya, but which are then used by Islamist militias in Syria and Mali. This makes Arms for Hostages look petty.

And the cover up had begun very early. This wasn’t clean at all.

American officials say that the United Arab Emirates first approached the Obama administration during the early months of the Libyan uprising, asking for permission to ship American-built weapons that the United States had supplied for the emirates’ use. The administration rejected that request, but instead urged the emirates to ship weapons to Libya that could not be traced to the United States.

“The U.A.E. was asking for clearance to send U.S. weapons,” said one former official. “We told them it’s O.K. to ship other weapons.”

If Obama had wanted to back the rebels, why not authorize the shipment of US manufactured weapons? The only reason to need plausible deniability, and this goes beyond mere plausible deniability, is that US officials expected that the chances were good that these weapons would be used to carry out attacks against Americans or against American allies.

The American support for the arms shipments from Qatar and the emirates could not be completely hidden. NATO air and sea forces around Libya had to be alerted not to interdict the cargo planes and freighters transporting the arms into Libya from Qatar and the emirates, American officials said.

So we’ve got American forces opening the way for arms being shipped to Al Qaeda. People will suggest this could have changed the election, but for that we would have needed a candidate who could have made use of it as a talking point. And we, in any case, basically knew this all along.

“Nobody knew exactly who they were,” said the former defense official. The Qataris, the official added, are “supposedly good allies, but the Islamists they support are not in our interest.”

When your “good allies” are also good allies with terrorist groups at war with America, it might be time to decide who they really are good allies with.

Now here is where it gets interesting for those people who have speculated that Stevens was involved in arms transfers.

During the frantic early months of the Libyan rebellion, various players motivated by politics or profit — including an American arms dealer who proposed weapons transfers in an e-mail exchange with a United States emissary later killed in Benghazi — sought to aid those trying to oust Colonel Qaddafi.

The case of Marc Turi, the American arms merchant who had sought to provide weapons to Libya, demonstrates other challenges the United States faced in dealing with Libya. A dealer who lives in both Arizona and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, Mr. Turi sells small arms to buyers in the Middle East and Africa, relying primarily on suppliers of Russian-designed weapons in Eastern Europe.

In March 2011, just as the Libyan civil war was intensifying, Mr. Turi realized that Libya could be a lucrative new market, and applied to the State Department for a license to provide weapons to the rebels there, according to e-mails and other documents he has provided.

He also e-mailed with J. Christopher Stevens, then the special representative to the Libyan rebel alliance. The diplomat said he would “share” Mr. Turi’s proposal with colleagues in Washington, according to e-mails provided by Mr. Turi. Mr. Stevens, who became the United States ambassador to Libya, was one of the four Americans killed in the Benghazi attack on Sept. 11.

Mr. Turi’s application for a license was rejected in late March 2011. Undeterred, he applied again, this time stating only that he planned to ship arms worth more than $200 million to Qatar. In May 2011, his application was approved. Mr. Turi, in an interview, said that his intent was to get weapons to Qatar and that what “the U.S. government and Qatar allowed from there was between them. “

Two months later, though, his home near Phoenix was raided by agents from the Department of Homeland Security. Administration officials say he remains under investigation in connection with his arms dealings. The Justice Department would not comment.

Mr. Turi said he believed that United States officials had shut down his proposed arms pipeline because he was getting in the way of the Obama administration’s dealings with Qatar. The Qataris, he complained, imposed no controls on who got the weapons. “They just handed them out like candy,” he said.

The relevance of this story to matters at hand is shaky. So why include it and make it so large a part of the article? That’s an interesting question. And a trail worth following.